


Haircut

by osprey_archer



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Haircuts, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-19 17:12:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17005761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osprey_archer/pseuds/osprey_archer
Summary: “When I came back,” Bucky said. His voice was low. “What did you expect?”Bucky asks Steve to cut his hair so he'll look like his old self when they visit Bucky's sister.





	Haircut

“Can you cut my hair?”

Steve nearly dropped his book. He hadn’t even realized Bucky was in the room. And Bucky almost never asked for anything. 

But there he stood, behind the couch, his hair hanging in dripping tendrils around his face and a pair of scissors in his hands. “I don’t know anything about cutting hair,” Steve protested.

“So? It just needs to be short.” 

“Couldn’t you – ” _go to a barbershop_ was on the tip of Steve’s tongue. Bucky used to go to the barbershop every other week practically. Carried a comb in his pocket. Stopped to fix his hair in shop windows. “I won’t be able to cut it fancy like you had it, First Sergeant.” 

Bucky scowled. “I can just hack it off myself like usual,” he said peevishly. “I guess Rebecca won’t care either way.” He made as if to cut off a hunk of hair right there, and Steve reached over the back of the couch to take the scissors from his hand. 

“No, I can do it,” Steve said. “If you really don’t care how it looks. Just put some newspapers under the chair in the kitchen – like how your mom used to do when she cut my hair.” The light reflected off the gleaming blades in a brief blinding flash. “You’d never even let her trim yours.” 

Bucky made a lunge for the scissors. 

“I’ll do it!” Steve protested. “I’ll do it. Just grab me a comb.” 

Steve didn’t get a newspaper anymore; they had to line to kitchen floor with those coupon booklets that still came in the mail. Bucky arranged a kitchen towel around his own shoulders and handed Steve a comb, silent. It was missing a few teeth. 

Bucky’s hair was cold and wet as Steve began to comb it. But it smoothed out quickly: Bucky’s straight hair rarely tangled badly. “How short do you want it?” 

An irritable shrug. “Just short.”

Steve took up the scissors. He hesitated a moment, scissors poised; but after all, there was nothing for it but to jump in, so he took up a thin sheaf of hair and cut. The scissors sounded loud in the quick kitchen. Bucky clasped his hands in his lap, left hand in its black leather glove cupped over the right. 

Bucky shivered very slightly when the cold blunt edge of the scissors touched his skin, and Steve rested a hand on his shoulder. He could feel Bucky’s knotted muscles through his soft long-sleeved t-shirt, just for a moment, and then Bucky shook him off. “Get it over with.” 

Steve felt worse with each snick of the scissors. He wanted to make it look good, but instead Bucky looked more and more like a porcupine – or rather a hedgehog; at least their spines were good and short. 

When Steve had it all about the same length, he nearly cast the scissors away from him. They clattered on the countertop. “It’s done,” he announced, his voice abrupt with embarrassment. 

Bucky touched his hair lightly with his fingertips. His shoulders gave a quick shudder – “I told you I’m not a barber,” Steve snapped – and then he stood, and took up the comb where Steve had left it on the counter, and began combing his hair as he walked down the hall to the bathroom. 

Steve followed him, stopping in the bathroom doorway. Bucky stood over the sink, dabbing water on his hair and then running his comb through it, turning his head from side to side to consider how it looked. 

It was – or it had been, once – a usual scene: Bucky standing in front of the mirror, primping for a girl, Steve leaning against the doorframe behind him to watch. 

The lump in Steve’s throat was new. Bucky used to whistle as he combed back his hair, excited about his date. Now his brow creased with anxiety as he peered in the mirror. 

Bucky’s gaze flickered over at Steve, leaning against the doorframe. Steve smiled at him. “I look okay?” Bucky asked. 

“You look good,” Steve told him. “No thanks to the barber.”

Bucky frowned at himself in the mirror, smoothing down his hair again. “It doesn’t look the same,” he said, and he turned away from the mirror, looking at Steve. “I want her to recognize me.”

“She’ll recognize you,” Steve promised. “We sent her a picture, remember?”

“Yeah, but…” Bucky turned back to the mirror. He fiddled with his hair again, then let his hand drop to grip the edge of the sink and just stared at himself. Steve had the odd feeling that this was the first time in ages Bucky had really looked at himself. “Even with the picture – I’m not going to look how she expects.”

“She’s changed a lot more than you have,” Steve pointed out.

Bucky snorted. He didn’t reply. 

The tap was dripping. Steve leaned over and shut it off. His own reflection bobbed behind Bucky’s in the mirror. 

“When I came back,” Bucky said. His voice was low. “What did you expect?” 

Steve looked up, startled, and met Bucky’s gaze in the mirror. Bucky’s chin ducked, like he wanted to look away, then lifted, his jaw squaring, and he met Steve’s gaze half-defiantly. 

“I don’t know what I expected,” Steve said slowly. “By the time we actually found you – I don’t know, I was beginning to expect we’d never find you. You were dead or you’d been recaptured by Hydra or you’d gone back to Hydra on purpose, I don’t know.”

Bucky shifted, like he meant to turn to look into Steve’s face, but he stopped the movement before it even really started. He caught Steve’s gaze in the mirror again. “You must have thought about what I’d be like if I did show up.”

“I tried… Sam warned me you’d be different. I tried not to get attached to any particular expectations. I read a bunch of books about PTSD and stuff and… I thought you’d need help. I thought,” Steve said, and he wanted to stop talking, but the words had turned into a runaway train and he couldn’t stop till it reached the end of the track, “I expected you’d let me help.” 

Bucky fiddled with the tap, dribbling water over his fingers, smoothing down an errant wisp of hair. “I do let you help,” Bucky said. “I just let you cut my hair.” 

“I know.” The tap was dripping again. Steve turned it off. “What did _you_ expect?” Steve asked. “From me?” 

Bucky turned away from the mirror, so they were nearly chest to chest in the small bathroom. “Do you think Rebecca…” he began; and then he rubbed his hand over his hair, so it all stood up in hedgehog spines again. “I don’t want to disappoint her,” Bucky said, and his eyes flickered up to Steve’s, and in a moment of near-telepathy Steve heard the end of the sentence that Bucky didn’t say: _I don’t want to disappoint her like I disappointed you._

_You didn’t disappoint me_ , Steve almost said. But it wasn’t exactly true. He had tried so hard not to build up any expectations, but he’d been looking for Bucky so long, they’d built themselves up unnoticed. 

And he disappointed Bucky, too. He knew that. He wasn’t even sure what Bucky wanted from him half the time, but he knew he wasn’t doing it. 

“Listen, Buck,” Steve said. “It’s not going to be exactly how you expect – for either of you. But you’ll be glad you did it anyway. Her life’s going to be better with you back in it.” 

Bucky met Steve’s gaze again. He peered into Steve’s face, searching. “You think so?” 

“Yeah.” Steve punched his shoulder lightly. “I’d rather have you in my life and want to strangle you half the time than not have you around at all.” 

Bucky’s gaze fell. He was smiling at his feet. Then he straightened his shoulders – this transformation still amazed Steve every time he saw it – and that momentary vulnerability was gone, and he stood cool and square and strong, as if he’d never had a moment’s doubt about anything in his life. “We both know I’d strangle you first,” he scoffed. 

Steve squared his shoulders too. “I’d say prove it,” he said, “but Rebecca’s going to be damned disappointed in both of us if we show up at her place dead.” 

Bucky laughed. He punched Steve’s shoulder a little too hard, and pushed past him out of the bathroom. “Let’s get pizza,” he called. “I’m starving.”

Steve exhaled. He felt that he had been sucking in his chest the whole time they stood face to face in the bathroom. “Sure,” he said, and was about to follow Bucky out, when suddenly Bucky poked his head back into the room.

“I’m glad you’re around, too,” Bucky said. 

Then he was gone again, lickety-split. “Only ‘cause you want someone to cut your hair!” Steve called, trying to sound cranky. But he was smiling into the mirror, grinning like a loon; and he could hear Bucky halfway across the apartment, ordering on the phone. “I’d like to order two large pizzas, please – ”

“Make that three!” Steve called. He tore his eyes away from his reflection and flicked off the light. “I’m starving too.”


End file.
